Most recently, in Video #5, Melissa Farrell, director of research at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Texas, talks cavalierly about the cost of extracting "intact fetal cadavers." It is, Farrell says coldly, "all just a matter of line items."

This raises the possibility that no one wants to discuss - that some of the aborted fetuses exited the womb alive and they were either killed or left to die, their "cadavers" intact.

No one wants to discuss this, but here we are, discussing it. I've often encountered the argument that abortion should be a woman's right even up to the moment before birth. After a successful birth, however, a living fetus is not only declared a baby, but, presumably, is also granted the right to life. Wouldn't that presumption likewise apply to aborted, "intact fetuses" taken from the womb alive?

Note that I'm focusing upon a narrow point: Does an aborted but intact, living fetus have the right to life?

6 Comments:

The 2002 Born Alive Infants Protection Act bars anyone including medical personnel from intentionally taking the life of a fetus surviving outside the womb,. Medical abortions induced by pills can be used up through the ninth week of pregnancy and cause the fetus to be expelled intact.

I have a gut check scenario for anyone who thinks a fertilized egg is equal to a born human, imagine you are working at a fertility clinic when a disaster occurs such as a fire. You can either assist a disabled coworker in escaping or take a container of frozen embryos. Id leave the embryos and help my coworker, even if I didn't like the person and the embryos were my only chance at biological motherhood. The value of human life should not be reduced to 48 pairs of chromosomes.

One of my friends back in Texas many years ago saw an advertisement by a construction-equipment company for a backhoe called a "Beaver." The ad said, "Try one of our little Beavers for a nice, tight hole."

I don't know if that Beaver was a Castor fiber or a Homo sapiens, but I imagine there were some confused customers . . .

About Me

I am a professor at Ewha Womans University, where I teach composition, research writing, and cultural issues, including the occasional graduate seminar on Gnosticism and Johannine theology and the occasional undergraduate course on European history.
My doctorate is in history (U.C. Berkeley), with emphasis on religion and science. My thesis is on John's gospel and Gnosticism.
I also work as one-half of a translating team with my wife, and our most significant translation is Yi Kwang-su's novel The Soil, which was funded by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.
I'm also an award-winning writer, and I recommend my novella, The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, to anyone interested.
I'm originally from the Arkansas Ozarks, but my academic career -- funded through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., Fulbright, Naumann, Lady Davis) -- has taken me through Texas, California, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and Israel and has landed me in Seoul, South Korea. I've also traveled to Mexico, visited much of Europe, including Moscow, and touched down briefly in a few East Asian countries.
Hence: "Gypsy Scholar."